A space for respectful dialogue about sex, gender and diversity

[Tandora]

This is a thread for posters who want to talk and share a diverse range of opinions about sex, gender, being gender non-conforming and/or trans, and public policy. It is to learn from each other; to engage in a productive exchange, and to hear different sides of the story.

It is not a space for bullying and insults. Please do not join if your intention is to control the conversation and undermine those who disagree with you.

Debbie Hayton is a self described AGP

I thought Tandora didn't like echo chambers. And yet here we are with them trying to create one.

Of course people can disagree, I'm not asking people not to disagree,

I'm simply asking people not to attack and demean my person.

Why can you not manage that?

Are you actually open to learning though Tandora? I ask because I haven’t once seen you take on board or sometimes even acknowledge our comments on the topic.

If you read the thread you will see that I've acknowledged a lot of comments.

Well clearly it is, because you keep telling us we aren't respectful when we say no we don't want to have this conversation on your terms PRECISELY because you aren't respectful.

Making posts telling other posters to be respectful is a way to avoid actually answering any questions

And I have a degree of respect for his honesty on this topic.

Definitely don't want him in my spaces though.

I haven’t ever attacked or demeaned your person.

I’ve been respectful. I’ve been polite.

you have accused me of vile things. Things that are utterly abhorrent.

I would respectfully ask that you apply those standards to yourself going forward.

and it would be nice if you could answer my questions please. Thank you.

Because you don't post in good faith. You post to bully us into submission and to tell us how wrong we are and how invalid everything we say is.

I think I'm a bit in the middle of this debate...

I truly believe that gender dysphoria exists and probably has for far longer than we realise. I also have sympathy for people suffering from it as it must be very traumatising and isolating.

However, I also believe in fetishism and social contagion.

The idea of children transition medically makes me really uncomfortable. I'm glad none of this was a discussion when I was young as I'd 100000% decided I was a boy, for a variety of complex reasons.

I have all of these thoughts and they conflict with each other and I change my mind regularly.

Being around transmen doesnt make me feel uncomfortable. Trans women who were very obviously gay/camp men to start with dont either. It's more 45 y.o Brian who puts on a frock and calls himself Brenda I'm suspicious of, fairly or unfairly.

It would be interesting to know what the overlap is between paraphillia and people who say that they are trans.

It may be that they may be two seperate groups or that trans identifying people also have a higher incidence of paraphillia.

Plus people with paraphillia who are adopting a trans persona in order to just gain access to women's spaces or as a type of warped misogynistic behaviour.

Even contemplating access to women's spaces without this knowledge is in my opinion negligent.

I've never seen any research on this. If anyone has please share it.

you have accused me of vile things. Things that are utterly abhorrent.

This is a personal accusation/ attack. There is no place for personal comments/ accusations on this thread.

I would like to use this space to have a respectful discussion. Please could you respect that?

I'm checking out of this thread. There is only so much circularity I can take. We can't get beyond the 'recognising themselves as female' statement with anything more meaningful as a definition for what a transwoman is. There is nothing more sophisticated or detailed in the argument than that. FWIW, I suggest people check out @singlesexspacesinschools threads on the fight for single sex spaces in Brighton schools - the tenacity and grit to make a change happen in the real world is a great antidote to an endless word salad of meaninglessness. It makes me feel inspired and better that there are principled people fighting for their daughters (and sons) against this brain hurting mush. Although I do concede (as an ex-lurker myself) that even threads which appear pointless for their circularity/banging head against a brick wall of willful misunderstanding of what basic words mean (male, female, sex) cause lurkers to stop and think.

Good point.

By that definition a trans'man' on testosterone who accepts that sex is real and unchangeable is also a trans'woman'.

Your ideology is INSANE!

🎯

Thanks for sharing this perspective. We so desperately need more people to occupy the middle ground.

Like you respected Taztoy when you accused her of playing trauma trumps? That sort of respect?

Exactly.

We don't have to have respectful debate with MRAs.

It gives them legitimacy.

Trans incels are still incels.

We don't want to legitimise them.

There is no 'middle ground'.

You eventually come to the inevitable conclusion it's just a spectrum of sexism, but it's still sexism.

No but we can tell the difference between a man / trans woman and a woman. That is the whole point
If there is no difference between a trans woman and a man (apart from a frock and long hair and 'feelings') then the trans women can use the male spaces.

I see that respectful debate without bullying and personal accusations / attacks designed to undermine and demean is not possible on this board on mumsnet for those who don't tow the party line.

I would be interested in whether mumsnet recognises this problem and wants to address it.